Von Whitmore is a JMC Associate Professor and the Coordinator of Graduate Studies at Kent State University. She has professional experience as a reporter for radio and television in the Hampton Roads Virginia market and as the General Manager of Hampton University’s FM radio station, WHOV. Von’s teaching areas are in broadcast producing, graduate ethics and theory.

How do you define mass communication?

Mass communication involves the utilization of technology for the immediate or time delayed transmission of ideas to audiences of various sizes and at various distances.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

I recognize first that many students are scared about their job prospects after graduation. Heck, I was scared when I finished my undergraduate degree. So, I can relate. I try to get them excited by telling them the truth. In many cases, they will have better technical multi-media skills than their prospective employers. So, learn as much as you can and develop an expertise in one particular area but be knowledgeable as possible, about every aspect of journalism and mass communication. Internships, internships, internships, networking is important. I also tell them that the cream always rises to the top. I personally am not aware of any of my former hard working students who have not eventually landed a job in their chosen field.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

JMC programs face the challenge of ever-changing technology and staying current with new skills associated with the technology. But the bigger challenge is continuing to emphasize the values that journalism, in particular, was founded upon in light of the new tools we have to work with.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Many programs are doing away with the History of Mass Communication course. I think it’s a big mistake. Although students may not want to learn about John Peter Zenger or Ida B. Wells-Barnett, the old adage is true when it comes to JMC history. When students don’t know where the profession has been, they have no context or perspective to appreciate the present or anticipate the future.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

In my graduate and under courses I use weblogs, and wiki collaborative sites. For my undergraduate broadcast courses I use Flash and non-linear audio and video editing tools. I find that weblogs, in particular, can be very useful in coaching students to do reflective thinking about what they are learning.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Don’t give up what you believe to be important in your teaching but try to stay relevant. As educators we have a moral responsibility not only to stay current in our chosen discipline but also to use the mantel of academic freedom to ensure that we always teach what we think our students should know regardless of technology or external pressures. For media professionals I urge you to practice what we as educators preach. At times it becomes increasingly difficult to convince our students that the principles of journalism: truth, accuracy, fairness, etc, are still important when there are so many examples that show them otherwise.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

That’s a really not a hard question. The good JMC programs will continue to adapt and remain relevant to their students and their universities. We are truly in the information age that we have long told our students about even before it was really true. Now more than ever, AEJMC programs will be relied upon to produce skilled knowledge workers with strong ethical and professional values. Our democracy is dependent on what we do and we’re up to the challenge.

Judy VanSlyke Turk is Director of the School of Mass Communications at Virginia Commonwealth University. Prior to joining VCU in March 2002, she was founding dean of the College of Communication and Media Sciences at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. Previously, VanSlyke Turk was also dean of the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of South Carolina, director of the journalism and mass communications program at Kent State University and a faculty member at the University of Oklahoma, Louisiana State University and Syracuse University. Turk is a past president of AEJMC and is the current president of ASJMC, the Association of Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication.

How do you define mass communication?

I don’t think there is such a thing as mass communication anymore. Every communication is personal, segmented, targeted. It’s not a matter of reaching the masses with a message but in reaching large audiences via targeted, specialized messages.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

There are still jobs out there for students who “get it” re the need for legacy media to change and grow with the changing media landscape. Those who understand (and have the skill set for) multimedia, on-line journalism, use of social media in advertising and public relations and other “new media” applications will be sought for the smaller number of positions that are available.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

One of our biggest challenges as educators is to keep our academic programs in step with — or even ahead of — what’s happening in journalism and mass communications professions. We need to adapt to a shrinking role for “legacy media,” and a growing role of social media, segmented and specialized media, and “journalists” who really aren’t prepared. trained journalists in our traditional sense of the word.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

I’d like to save a journalism and mass communications ethics course. Many of our programs have combined ethics with law into one course because of accreditation and credit hour limitations, at a time when I think we need to be increasing, not diluting, our attention to the ethical practice of our craft.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I use blogs in my teaching as a way of introducing students to the opportunity of creating dialogue and discussion on-line. Students are comfortable using social media such as Facebook, but really don’t participate in important discussions about current affairs, their professions and civic issues. So I’ve created blogs for my classes to which I post items that I intend to stimulate critical thinking and discussion.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Advice for just about everyone these days: be nimble, be flexible, be willing to admit you don’t know the answer but are engaged in the search.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

There will always be journalism and mass communication. The challenge is that there will be pressures to make it something less than what it is now. Citizen journalism is, I think a threat to the integrity of news that journalists must counter — information that poses as journalism but which does not adhere to high journalistic values and standards. Professional journalists must stand strong against the unprofessional journalism (and public relations and advertising) that threatens the integrity of the professional practiced that we teach.

Nancy McKenzie Dupont came to the University of Mississippi after spending 17 years as a broadcast journalist. She was an anchor, reporter, producer and manager in markets from Phoenix, Ariz., to Charlotte, N.C. Her last job in the industry was executive producer and acting news director at WDSU-TV in New Orleans. Adviser to The Daily Mississippian’s online edition, Nancy also serves as a leader in the Radio-Television Journalism division of the AEJMC; she is also a member of the Broadcast Education Association. Dr. Dupont earned her Ph.D. in Mass Communications from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1997, and she and her husband, both Hurrricane Katrina survivors, now make their home in Oxford.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

While it’s true opportunities are shrinking in the traditional media, there are all kinds of other opportunities for young people who know how to effectively communicate. My students aren’t thinking only of newspapers, magazines, and broadcasting stations anymore. They’re figuring out how to be employed in new ways. In many ways, they keep me up-to-date about the opportunities.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

I believe every journalism class must emphasize that form of communication which will last forever: storytelling. The difference now is that professors must introduce students to the many different ways a story can be told. Could this go on the Internet? Will this story only work on TV? Is a print format the only way this could be told effectively? There are many new questions, and many new answers.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

History should be saved. We don’t do enough of it as it is. Students need to understand that the business of journalism is ever-changing. History will teach them that.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

We should all roll with the punches.

Tricia M. Farwell, assistant professor at Middle Tennessee State University, is the current teaching co-chair of the public relations division of AEJMC and secretary of the Entertainment and Sports Section for the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). She holds degrees from Arizona State University and has worked in corporate public relations and advertising for more than 17 years. Farwell has presented research at the HIC on Arts and Humanities at theMPCA . Additionally, Dr Farwell has authored the book, Love and Death in Edith Wharton’s Fiction. When she is not teaching or researching, she can be found restoring or driving her 1998 corvette convertible with Barry, the Gnome.

How do you define mass communication?

This is becoming somewhat murky. Do we count cellular phones as part of mass communication? Do we confine the definition to what is considered “traditional media”? Do we cast the widest net and call it mass communication?

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Actually, how to get a job in the current market was one of the first questions that my students asked me this semester one the first day of class. The main approach that I’ve found which makes students most “excited” is being honest with them. I’ve shared my experiences, as I’m sure most of us do, so the students know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It helps to be willing to listen and to mentor them through the initial steps of the job search process. Basically, remembering what it was like to make that transition from student to employee and being someone that the students can go-to with their flubs and awards.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

It’s getting more and more difficult to keep relevant, I think. It’s even a struggle on an individual level. We need to identify and embrace new technologies and new modes of communication. Programs also have to make sure that their students are informed of how we arrived where we are regarding the field. User generated content may be something that we’ll have to address also.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Ethics. With the trends towards social media and user generated content our students need to be aware of the issues that they will face. Just because they *can* do it does it mean they *should* do it?

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I’m probably going to forget some of them…

Twitter is the big one I’m incorporating this semester (Spring 2009). So many of the students either haven’t heard of it or think it is not for them. It is becoming a huge tool for public relations practitioners for everything from monitoring feedback to pitching stories to journalists.

LinkedIn as a source for those who are job searching/job networking. The recommendation feature is interesting and it provides a way to network.

Currently, I’m working on setting up my own blog and new web site. However, it seems that students aren’t overly excited about accessing those without it being part of an assignment. They are most likely to visit my Facebook page. Most of the class documents are put on D2L. So, I’m not overly sure that is going to be a useful thing as I don’t want to “force” the students to go to my web site.

YouTube is essential. The only glitch with that is that the label will stick that it appears in the class. Students will come in and say “are we watching YouTube today?” before they settle down in their seats. However, when used well, it does help keep the students involved and excited about the class.

Instant Messaging (Yahoo!, AIM, Google Talk, Messenger) for quick questions. Most of the students love this around exam time. It makes it easy for them to drop me a quick question and for them to get a response.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Stay on top of the things that interest our students. If we want them to be interested in what we say (read that as actually *be* in the class both mentally and physically), we need to be interested in them.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

Predicting the future is always difficult and a foot-in-mouth task for me, but at the risk of inserting my foot in my mouth…We’ll probably have to address the increased amount of user generated content.

Daniel Reimold is a Fulbright research fellow currently in Singapore documenting the history of the Singaporean student press while serving as a visiting scholar within the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information at Nanyang Technological University. He runs College Media Matters (http://www.collegemediamatters.com), a blog on modern student journalism featured within The Poynter Institute’s “Blog Network” and in the “Blog Central” portion of the Web site for College Media Advisers. Refereed research papers he has authored or co-authored have been published in Newspaper Research Journal, Journalism History, and College Media Review and accepted for presentation at numerous conferences, including the International Symposium on Online Journalism and the AEJMC national convention. He earned his doctorate in journalism/mass communication from Ohio University, where he served as a Scripps Howard Teaching Fellow. He is a two-time AEJMC Great Ideas for Teachers (GIFT) Scholar; graduate student winner of the 2007 AEJMC “Promising Professors” honor; and a recent head of the Graduate Education Interest Group (GEIG).

How do you define mass communication?

It is still, as it has always been, a conversation with the world. Yet, the one-to-many model is *so* 1990s. The new models: many-to-many or even one-to-some, with the possibility of many happening across it sometime later. The means for this communication are also changing. The Wikipedia entry for mass communication notes: “It is usually understood to relate to newspaper and magazine publishing, radio, television and film.” Judges’ ruling? Incomplete. Mass comm. can also now occur via a number of new media means, including a Facebook status update, a blog post, a Twitter tweet, a Flickr photo set, a YouTube video, a mass e-mail, and a wiki entry.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

By not accepting the premise of the question. Jobs in *traditional* news media are shrinking currently and the economy is certainly impacting the communications industry as a whole like most other fields. But all hope is not lost, and comm. jobs are out there. The economy will rebound. Newspapers and other print outlets won’t die but reinvent. And no matter the media of the moment, there will always be a demand for skilled people who know how to communicate with others on a mass level, be it with news, advertising or PR. The best part for students: It has never been easier to share your stories with a mass audience. New media empower students to make a difference, now, without needing to wait for an internship, a college newspaper reporting assignment, an advanced course or a starter job. Instead, they can start a blog, an online news outlet, a Web site displaying their photography or video or audio awesomeness. In this period of profound change, media jobs and outlets are not only being staffed but created. Students and young graduates are at the heart of some of the most innovative and profitable of these creations.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

Incorporate the new media methods, mantras, and madness into coursework without letting them overwhelm all else. A complete program overhaul is not needed. A four-credit advanced course on Twitter also is not the answer. But do innovate, reinvent, digitize, and be willing to fail.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Feature writing or any form of narrative journalism. I believe feature writing is the only thing, the ONLY thing, that will save journalism from being gobbled alive and skinned to the core by the masses of bloggers and user-generated content. Why? Because it’s *not* the type of news we’re always used to reading and because it’s *not* so obsessed with the rush of getting information out at any cost that it forgets that great reporting, great journalism, at its heart, is about the story.How do we escape life, even for a moment, especially in our e-intrusive age? How do we step out of the grind and take a second to more deeply reflect on what it all means? Feature stories, the best ones, have the power of stopping time or at least slowing it down, of releasing us from that sausage grind of a day, and making us leave our bodies, float above ourselves and consider the life we are leading and the higher order of things and the bigger picture questions of our culture, our society, our world.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

Twitter, WordPress, Wordle, Google Maps, Dipity, Ning, YouTube, Flickr, Soundslides, Final Cut Pro, Dreamweaver, yada, yada, yada. In the end, the specific tools and apps don’t matter. That part of the answer will be stale in six months, one year tops anyway, as evermore new media possibilities emerge. The main new media-inspired tool I use is open-mindedness. I am willing to experiment with what’s out there, even the quirkier must-use apps of the moment, if it might help my students. Part of the fun in teaching journalism and mass communication courses in the new media age: There have never been so many tools helping us to train and motivate student journalists. There have never been so many ways to assist students in documenting the stories that are just aching to be seen and heard. Three Web sites that I use to help stay abreast of these tools: the Center for Innovation in College Media blog (http://collegemediainnovation.org/blog/), Teaching Online Journalism(http://mindymcadams.com/tojou/), and 10,000 Words (http://10000words.net/).

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

All of us need to accept what we do not know and push for training to become better acquainted with the tools and skills-sets that currently scare us or elude our understanding. We also need to recognize that new media are NOT the answer. They are simply the latest and often now the best means to an end to which journalists have always aspired: sharing stories that matter, entertain, inform, and provide a glimpse into our life and times.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

I asked my journalism students in Singapore this question. Three of my favorite answers: Edward R. Murrow resurrected and reporting on CNN live/dead via hologram; microscopic video cameras implanted into our eyes so that all our waking moments have YouTube potential; and newspapers localized for every single person on earth. Truly, the only prediction that I feel comfortable making about J&MC’s future is that there will be one. The profession, the field of study, will survive, and the world will be better for it.

Michael Bugeja, who directs the Greenlee School at Iowa State University, is author of Interpersonal Divide (Oxford University Press, 2005), which won the Clifford Christians Award for research in media ethics, and Living Ethics across media platforms (Oxford, 2008), which calls for a moral convergence to accompany the technological one.

Bugeja’s research has been cited in The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, The Futurist, The International Herald Tribune (France), Toronto Globe & Mail (Canada), The Guardian (UK) and The Economist, among others. His articles have appeared in Journalism Quarterly, Journalism and Mass Communication Educator, New Media and Society, and Journal of Mass Media Ethics, among others.

Bugeja also writes professionally for such publications as The Quill, Editor & Publisher and The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Bugeja became director of the Greenlee School in 2003. Previously he was a journalism professor at Ohio University and a media adviser at Oklahoma State University. In the 1970s, he worked as state editor for United Press International and holds a Ph.D. from OSU and a master’s from South Dakota State University.

How do you define mass communication?

This is an excellent question because we cannot yet answer it sufficiently enough to create a business model for major news outlets struggling with Internet and converged platforms. In the past, the power of the technology–whether it was a 64-inch six-color sheet-fed press or a 50,000 watt radio station–was aligned proportionately with the target market mass audience. The rule was, the larger the investment, the greater the audience or the potential for the mass. Now, a high school blogger has the means to broadcast, telecast or publish worldwide through the laptop in her bedroom; so technology and investment no longer are reliable gauges of mass audience.

To be sure, the technology of old media was its chief expense, as in the purchase and storage of paper and ink, or the cost and maintenance of a printing press, or the equipping of a broadcast tower and studio (not to mention a fleet of delivery trucks or television vans and the upkeep and insurance on them). The sheer cost of such technology kept the news in aristocratic hands. The democratization of media, which continues to this day globally, has taken news out of those hands and placed it in the populace’s, giving the audience a google of outlets associated with lifestyle choices or psychographics.

The disconnect between the power of the technology and the size of the audience has generated this question–how do we define a mass, by its potential for or actual audience?–data that can fluctuate wildly from day to day, yet again undermining business models based on reader or viewer audits by which to establish advertising rates.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Iowa State University can boast the best student newspaper in the country, at least for awhile still, as our Iowa State Daily was chosen last year by the Society of Professional Journalists. See: http://www.las.iastate.edu/newnews/dailyaward.shtml. We are fortunate to have topnotch journalism and advertising practitioners in Hamilton Hall where both the Daily and the Greenlee School are located. Students see us get excited by the news or creativity. They see us shoot pictures, do campaigns, file stories ourselves, challenge theories or create new ones in class, predict legal precedents or prophesy ethical dilemmas as case studies. Then, too, we have a steady stream of professionals–many from our alumni base–visiting us each month. We have about 10 student media and media organizations, including an ad agency and an integrated media suite, with 400-hour internships (and more) sponsored by the likes of Meredith Corporation or Scripps. We don’t focus on the shrinking job opportunities but on our core value of the First Amendment, and we use our nationally recognized First Amendment Day (sponsored by Lee Enterprises) as a recruiting tool.

And of course, I as director, rationalize all this when I think about job opportunities. I have a comrade in that in Mark Witherspoon, who advises the Daily, and is a Watergate-era reporter like me. We fill our students with as much zeal as possible before they leave for the real world, with its downholds and debt, knowing that even if many of the jobs disappear, our students will be taking to other industries these fundamental ideas that have endured (or are still being realized) since the founding of this country:

1. Equality: Every person has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
2. Inclusivity: Our national identity is incorporated in our name, the United States.
3. Work Ethic: Reason and merit prevail over bloodline and entitlement.
4. Honesty: Truth supersedes authority.
5. Access: Education ensures free speech in a republic.
6. Tolerance: The majority may rule, but the minority must be heard.
7. Accountability: Journalism is the watchdog of government.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

Right now there are few, if any, successful business models for mass communication. It’s the nature of the platform. The convention of Internet is such that information that sells once has little value. In fact, we give it away for free. The Internet is programmed for revenue generation–the vending of information about information that sells more than once. This is a devastating coincidence for journalism and mass communication. In the end, it doesn’t matter how inviting or engaging your Web portal is if those who visit there don’t want to pay for anything. Then there are mistakes we should not have made in media. Over time, we violated our reason for being–which was to give the audience what it needed rather than what it wanted–and learned that so many other social networks and outlets could do that better than we could, from Facebook to TMZ.com.

The key to relevancy is understanding the nature of the platform. When we do, we will create a successful business model because each newsroom is a storehouse of information about information–we used to call that the morgue–databanks full of court records, sport stats, births, deaths, awards and so much more. We have to learn how to vend that information and sell it more than once. And when that happens, the nature of newsgathering, not the technology, will change. We will have created a successful business model. And in the trade-off, we no longer may be defenders of the Constitution but generators of the e-Conomy.

Then there is this: There will be those who want what we used to do and would be willing to pay for it, huge sums–a select few aristocrats who realize that timely news that informs rather than affirms was, is and will be the pathway to power. There is irony in that. In the past, the “mass” of communication was its power source. In the future, it may be the “communication” sans mass that shifts the paradigm.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Journalism history. But there is no future in it.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I’m an editor and advisor for the journalism social network, NewsTrust.net. As such, I have been able to convey to students the need to build trust in the online audience. The need for trust building online occurred when I was doing rather than teaching journalism.

In my enterprise work for The Chronicle of Higher Education, on the virtual world Second Life, I ran into an age-old problem of old media. The first draft of my story had an opening paragraph noting that there were about 300,000-500,000 people in-world at any time, even though Linden Lab inflated users to 9 million in some promotions. In an early draft I included how some people register multiple avatars, for instance. Problem was, I had only 1850 words to make my case, and that paragraph had to go. So I did that old wire service trick, noting that Second Life “reportedly” had 9 million users. That saved about a hundred words, and I met my length target.

You can find that article here: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/09/2007091401c.htm

When the article appeared, the blogosphere erupted, claiming I didn’t even know that only 300,000-500,000 people were active users, and if I didn’t know that, then what did that say about the rest of the piece!

The moral was not lost on me. Those online do not have the trust in journalism that the traditional print audience did in large part because we have not earned it through the editor-reporter relationships (especially when editors are routinely downsized these days). So in my second SL enterprise piece, I included a link to my interviews. Here’s the URL: http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/2007/11/2007111201c.htm

Given such disclosure, the online audience seemed satisfied that my second article was balanced. Since then, I have gone even further in my reporting, putting my fact checks online to build trust. See: http://www.interpersonal-divide.org/newsreports.html.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Read Ellul and Heidegger about the philosophy of technology, especially its nature of changing everything it touches without itself being changed much at all. Reread Neil Postman whose work I continue in my scholarship. Understand the programming of a converged platform that is asynchronous, acultural and ephemeral. Spend less time promoting presentation and more time analyzing how venders of information about information make money on the Web, and adapt that to journalism. Study eBay, for instance, and adapt that to online classifieds. Or give classifieds away for free with a note to users that they are on their honor to donate a percentage of any sale to the upkeep of the site, such as we see with shareware sites. Don’t think out of the box; think within it, the computer screen, and scrutinize the thing critically.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

I think the future is incredibly bright for education in journalism and mass communication, because every discipline communicates with our equipment and should have to learn our values, especially if mass communication continues to dwindle in social influence. We should be filling huge lecture halls with our principles classes (and keeping non-majors out of our skills classes until they become zealous enough to enroll in our programs).

Candace Perkins Bowen directs both the Center for Scholastic Journalism at Kent State University and the statewide Ohio Scholastic Media Association.

She teaches media writing plus journalism teaching methods and desktop publishing for Integrated Language Arts majors.

A former high school journalism teacher with a BS in newspaper journalism and an MA in journalism education, Perkins Bowen is a past president and remains on the board of the Journalism Education Association. In addition, she heads the Steering Committee of the Student Press Law Center Advisory Council and is the current head of the Scholastic Journalism Division of AEJMC.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Are job opportunities really shrinking? Or are they shifting and rearranging? Our democracy still needs an informed citizenry, and thorough, fair, honest and accurate information must be available. Journalists need to be flexible and creative in their approach to providing that. In today’s world, that also means being digital and thinking about audiences and trying new techniques. Doing THAT makes it easy to keep students excited — they can use Flash and Soundslides and all sorts of bells and whistles. The not-so-exciting part is when you must remind them of spelling and grammar and AP style and ethical considerations.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

This isn’t the expected answer — it’s not history, ethics, typical undergraduate degree options. What I want to save from extinction is high school journalism. As noted researcher Jack Dvorak found and reported in the early ‘90s, “Journalism Kids Do Better.” He found that again in 2008 — “High School Journalism Matters.” Students who take journalism or work on the high school newspaper, newsmagazine or yearbook have better GPAs, in high school and in college, score higher on most parts of the ACT (not math, but does that surprise anyone?), and do better in college English, too. These are the ones who do need to be tomorrow’s journalists because they are the smart ones, the ones who want to explore and report on the world around them, the ones who can adapt to the changing face of media.

But saving those courses isn’t going to be easy. With high-stakes testing, school officials often think “traditional” courses are what students need, even though those taking Intensive Journalistic Writing do better on the Advanced Placement English Language and Composition test than those taking standard AP courses. With concern about school levies and thus the school’s image, administrators are even more worried about articles that might “make the school look bad,” though preventing free speech certainly doesn’t reflect well on a school. Saddling a new English teacher with the school newspaper is a recipe for disaster, but finding a qualified journalism educator isn’t easy, especially because many states don’t require any specific training or credentials.

Still, with support from colleges and universities who know the value of high school media and with help from newsroom professionals, high school media can be saved. It won’t be easy, but losing potential journalists and savvy media consumers because they aren’t allowed to explore media as part of their secondary school education simply cannot happen.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Save the high school journalist. Realize his or her voice is what democracy needs, what tomorrow’s news rooms need, and what we can’t afford to lose.

James D. (Jimmy) Ivory is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (a.k.a. Virginia Tech), where he has worked since 2005. His teaching and research at Virginia Tech is primarily focused on media effects and communication technologies. Ivory recently founded the Virginia Tech Gaming and Media Effects Research Laboratory (VT G.A.M.E.R. Lab) a small research facility where students and faculty investigate the content and physiological, psychological, and social effects of video games, virtual worlds, and other media technologies. For 2008-2009, Ivory serves as the head of the Communication Technology (CTEC) Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC).

Before joining Virginia Tech, Ivory earned a Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, as well as an M.A. in Communication and B.S. in Journalism from the Department of Communication and Journalism at the University of Wyoming. Ivory lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, with his wife Adrienne.

How do you define mass communication?

I suppose I am not particularly concerned about any distinction between “mass communication” and any other categories of the communication pantheon (interpersonal, group, public, etc.), primarily because research seems to find time and time again that a lot of communication processes and effects occur in surprisingly similary ways across “levels” of communication. Whether we are talking one-on-one, watching television, reading a book, etc., there are consistent trends in our responses to messages and their sources. I think there are distinctions between the levels of communication, and they matter, but I guess they don’t bother me a lot given that there are often as many similarities in communication phenomena across levels as there are differences.

That said, I don’t buy into the idea that mass communication is dying or dead. Talk of social networking and user-generated content and things might prompt some to write an obituary for mass communication, but at the end of the day a lot of these formats still result in one person or corporation raking in cash generated via a lot of individuals’ media use in one way or another. Hmm. Maybe that’s a good definition of mass communication right there.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Surprisingly, not many of the students I’ve visited with have been having a lot of difficulty getting work and internships…yet. That’s probably not representative of the atmosphere among the students I am around, though. I may not be hearing about such difficulties because the students who are having trouble are the same students who aren’t taking time to reach out to me as an instructor, advisor, etc. Then again, I imagine I’ll hear more as times get tougher. At that point, I’ll definitely need to think hard about how to get students excited about the field, but for now most of them seem excited enough about it already. That enthusiasm makes my line of work a lot of fun.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

There are a lot of changes that people have proposed and will, and I suppose it remains to be seen which of them are good ideas. One suggestion I would make is that programs think conceptually in terms of their courses, faculty, curriculum tracks, and all other structures instead of letting current media patterns dictate their institutional organization. For example, thinking about the field in terms of “print,” “online,” “television,” etc., makes sense at the time, but a focus on these media “objects” in defining organization guarantees obsolescence. The media objects and technologies change, but the important concepts are more immutable. We should remember that when we think about how our programs are structured.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Undergraduate Research Methods. It’s a gateway to a big part of the work going in the departments, colleges, and schools that the students attend, but too often students don’t get enough exposure to the research atmosphere in which they are immersed. At the multiple institutions that have looked after me during my short career so far, I’ve encountered too many students who are stunned to find out that their professor in “X” course also happens to have done some important and interesting research on “X” communication topic. That surprise is quickly followed by curiosity about this part of their professors’ work. Aside from teaching skills that are invaluable to both academic and industry careers, introductory research methods courses expose a lot of students to the excitement that discovering new knowledge can bring.

Honorable mentions are Newswriting and Media Law. The first could easily get compromised (e.g., too-large enrollments, too few assignments) during tough times given the resources it requires to maintain enough attention on grading, etc. The second is not always popular with students. Neither is an acceptable reason to reduce emphasis on these courses. In fact, they’re probably good reasons that the courses should be guarded jealously.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

A lot of the technology I use in teaching is freely available stuff that anyone can use. I like to show clips from video sites like YouTube and things like that, mess with Facebook groups, etc. I use tools like PowerPoint and Blackboard now, but was reluctant to do so for a few years and made simple WWW sites as substitutes for both because 1) it felt awkward to be in a field emphasizing competence in media production, etc., while using leased boilerplate-style tools to deliver media content pertaining to courses, and 2) it seems like some technology applications marketed to educators are unnecessary expenses that get sold to institutions when more accessible tools could suffice. But a simpler explanation might be that I’m probably just too cheap to innovate sometimes.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Ask me again in a couple of decades or so. Having been on the planet for 30 years and having probably wasted a fair chunk of that, I feel like I have a lot more learning to do before I can hope to dispense too much advice to media educators and professionals.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

I hope that communication focuses on its interdisciplinary roots and doesn’t become too insular. An advantage of the field has been its willingess to learn from other disciplines and industries and its ability to contribute to other other disciplines and industries. That’s probably easier to do when a field is very young, and I hope things don’t change as the field “matures.”

Serena Carpenter joined the Arizona State University faculty in 2007 specializing in newer media after finishing her Ph.D. degree in Media & Information Studies at Michigan State University. Her research has been published in research journals such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Mass Communication and Society, and Telecommunications Policy.

Carpenter teaches courses in the areas of online and broadcast journalism in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Carpenter has also taught courses at Michigan State University and Bloomsburg University. Her professional background includes working as a television reporter. Carpenter has produced an award-winning documentary on rural issues. She also works with journalists and faculty helping them transition to the online environment.

Her teaching and research interest areas include newer media, news quality, and sociology of news production. Carpenter is an active member of the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, International Communication Association, Broadcast Education Association and National Communication Association.

How do you define mass communication?

This definition is not my own, but I am not sure who defined it. Mass communication is organized communication to anonymous audiences. The communicator operates within an organizational setting.

However, we have to go beyond the mass-marketing mindset. Educators not only have to reevaluate skills courses that they are teaching, but they have to also concentrate on discussing how communication is changing among individuals, and how the news industry fits into people’s lives. In the past, the mass media were directed toward a large, heterogeneous audience whereas today’s consumer market is more fragmented and complex than the mass market, which translates into news media having less impact in a concentrated way. Organizations need to understand readers and how to connect to readers offline and online. Power has tilted in the direction of the people. The use of social media is one approach to connecting to readers and opinion leaders.

This also means teaching journalists to not only understand how to produce online content under the organization’s umbrella, but also to educate students on the economic, entrepreneurial, and relational aspects of the business and the implications of their actions. Scott Rosenberg, formerly of Salon.com, said that being part of a monopoly let journalists be ignorant about every aspect of the business besides the content. Today, journalists need to understand the broader components of the business to survive. This includes understanding their readers to a greater extent. This is why I also believe that mass communication theory courses should contain interpersonal communication theory as well.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Students are frustrated, scared and tired of hearing their future may not be possible in journalism. There is a good chance that journalism students will or have questioned their future. I tell them that journalism will always exist, however it may not be as they envision it.

Researchers argue that the work of journalists is a reflection of routines, however today’s world is unstable. To prepare them, we must think more broadly about our educational goals. We have to teach them to adapt and lead, not to just work for a news organization.

I encourage students to embrace their entrepreneurial spirit. In my online media class, I teach them skills that will not only be useful for traditional media, but also arm them with information on how they can create their own site and how they can use social media to promote their own content. There are opportunities; many students just don’t know where to look, or don’t understand that journalism is a product produced by many talented individuals and passionate organizations, not just those who work in a traditional newsroom.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

The topic of how to educate students to produce online content is controversial. The increasing abundance of new technologies presents challenges to journalism and mass communication programs. Journalism and mass communication program educators should train students to do more than get a job, but they should also prepare them to evolve with the field. For example, training journalists to work only for print is not the most forward-thinking approach. Students must be trained to work for a variety of media outlets, not just the traditional media.

I believe teaching technological skills is important, but programs must do more than teach non-broadcast students how to shoot video or teach students how to create a Web page. These skills empower students to create their own content; students need to understand how to use these tools to communicate. I believe that understanding online communities and their culture is also an important knowledge area.

The mission at liberal arts colleges is to nurture students to become “whole” people. To survive the changes, students must possess both skills and broad social knowledge to understand to what extent their behavior and product influences society. If we just focus on skills training, we have prepared them to enter the field, but not to evolve with the field. We need to teach them to create, think critically and creatively, and solve problems.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Theory.

Theory helps make sense of what is happening and what will happen. A good theory withstands time. The goal of scientific theory is to explain aggregate behavior, even when the journalism and mass communication field is in a state of flux.

For example, the definition of “what is news” is being challenged. Many people who aren’t employed as journalists are producing journalism. For some time, news content has looked somewhat similar in nature across mediums. For example, the framing, types of sources, and issues covered in the news media has been shown to similar. Theory is necessary to understand what leads humans to create and share, and how this influences content and people.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I change my syllabus every semester. Some experiments work, some are fine-tuned and some are shelved. For example, I just had my students live blog a guest speaker using Cover It Live. Live blogging is the act of exchanging commentary in real time. I will likely use it and Twitter for guest speakers, however I need to be a better guide in directing the conversation in a meaningful way.

As long as you teach them the basics, they will have the foundation to build their online communication, multimedia and Web design skills. I teach visual storytelling, use of social media, and Web page creation. It is too much for one course. Unfortunately, however, many programs cannot find individuals who can teach online skills. Thus the task of preparing students to work in an online world falls on a few people. But online communication is much more than teaching applications.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

I would suggest talking with other faculty outside of your program. I know that this seems silly, however many faculty do not have access to resources to help them learn applications. I have spoken with so many faculty members who have expressed fear and frustration with learning new technology. However, it is not difficult to incorporate innovative techniques to engage students in the classroom; faculty just need someone to share with them a few ideas that can be incorporated in a classroom or direct them to resources that can help them.

This is what motivated me to start my blog, “Online Journalism” at http://serenacarpenter.com. I share resources, teaching strategies, newer media research, syllabi and handouts with educators, students and anyone else who wants to learn.

Dane S. Claussen is a Professor & Director of Graduate Programs at the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication at Point Park University, Pittsburgh, Pa. He teaches Communication Law and Regulation; Applied Mass Communication Research Methods; Media Ethics and Professional Culture; Mass Communication History; Newspaper and Magazine Management; and Writing the Nonfiction Book. Dr. Claussen also regularly chairs master’s thesis committees and supervises many Directed Readings, Directed Research and Publication Project studies. (From August 2005 to May 2006, he also was Point Park’s first campus-wide Faculty Development Coordinator.) Since July 1987, Dr. Claussen has been President/Principal of American Newspaper Consultants, Ltd., a management consulting, expert witness, research, writing, editing, and publishing firm.

Dr. Claussen is Editor of the quarterly Journalism & Mass Communication Educator, one of the two major scholarly journals published by the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

How do you define mass communication?

Some say “mass communication” is a dead term or a dead concept, but I disagree. The question is not whether there still is mass communication, because a lot of communication is still aimed at audiences larger than a few to a few dozen friends, neighbors, co-workers, and/or relatives, but how many is “mass”? And even this is not a new concept. When Robert Rhett’s famous Charleston newspaper had a circulation of only 550, was that really a “mass medium”? We treat it as such. So why isn’t a listserv with only, say, 550 names, or a blog with only 550 regular visitors, also a “mass” medium? It is. And we still have interpersonal media: cellphones, emails, IMs, Skype, etc. As for asynchronous media, such as TV on demand or Web sites, if the intended cumulative audience is intended to be more than only a limited number of persons as above, then it also is still a “mass” medium. I never thought that the term “mass communication” required simultaneous dissemination and/or simultaneous consumption, or that “mass” necessarily meant only numbers in the tens of thousands to hundreds of millions.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Those who are truly excited about working in communications keep themselves excited by the important and nature of the work. Those who are not excited are difficult to excite any time. They show us their enthusiasm level because JMC enrollments almost always have gone up in good economies, and almost always have gone up in bad economies.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

Back to basics: the importance of journalism to democracy, the importance of democracy to journalism, thus politics/government news and opinion, business/economics news and opinion, religion news and opinion, high quality writing, giving the audience something that they cannot get anywhere else or at least being the highest quality provider of material they can get somewhere else, and accuracy!, accuracy!!, accuracy!!! These were the goals of publishers/printers in the 17th and 18th centuries, although the three-pronged accuracy exhortation didn’t come until later.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Media history, because it’s often difficult to communicate the importance of news media in the present, let alone the past, without teaching media history. Technologies come (and sometimes go), and journalism work is not always exciting or even interesting, but unless one covers nothing but sports or celebrities, journalism is always important.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

None. I focus on content, not technology.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Focus on content, not technology. Why is everyone focusing on how many staff members news organizations have and not how good they are? The news media would not be in the situation they are in now if they had both focused on the highest quality staffing, and believed in high quality content; most newspapers and essentially the entire TV industry did neither.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

Given the lack of focus on quality, from printing to advertising sales staffing to writing in the newspaper industry, and in essentially all areas in television news, and the limited number of consumers who demand high quality, it’s difficult not to be pessimistic about the news industries. Public relations and advertising will adapt/morph as corporations, industries, technologies (including but not only mass media), consumers, and the overall economy each change. In higher education, one can only hope that trends are cyclical, and that at some point, we again will have more than a few percent of our print, broadcast and online journalism students interested in reporting on subjects besides sports, other entertainment, and fluffy (often “me-search”) features.

Joseph Russomanno joined the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 1994. A native of Colorado, he earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. His decade-long career in broadcast news included two stops in St. Louis and two in Denver. He has worked as a news reporter in radio and television, and as a television news writer, newscast producer, and executive producer. His on-site assignments included the coverage of the 1987 Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Washington, D.C., Super Bowl XXI in Pasadena, and Super Bowl XXII in San Diego. He received several awards for his work as a broadcast journalist. After his career in journalism, Russomanno earned a doctorate from the University of Colorado-Boulder. His work there emphasized First Amendment theory and mass media law.

How do you define mass communication?

Textbook definition: A message from a source intended for multiple receivers – an audience of many.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

While I do not teach in the skills areas any longer, I’ve always believed that there is always room for excellence. There will always be a need and demand for quality reporting, information processing and writing. I continue to communicate that to students. And while job opportunities are shrinking in some areas of mass communication, if managed properly, job opportunities will be expanding in other areas.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

First, staying relevant requires making no changes on some fronts. As I note above, the basics of reporting, writing and information processing will always be relevant. Suggested changes are in recognizing the ever-evolving methods of presentation—the various platforms. Today’s students need to be versatile. Moreover, understanding and even developing business models seems to be essential in the current environment.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Trying to answer this is an impossible lose-lose situation. As tempting as it is to say Mass Communication Law, I’ll say a course that informs students of various aspects of the business of journalism and mass communication – and demands critical thinking about the past, present and future of that business – is indispensible.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

Again, because my teaching consists of non-skills courses, they are presented primarily through a lecture format. That said, I am a PowerPoint addict, incorporating all the “bells and whistles” it allows for – photos, video, audio, etc. By using audio and video from various sources as well, this combination creates presentations that are more dynamic than would otherwise be possible.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

As we look to the future, let’s not forget the past.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

The future? To invoke a line from the past, “It’s the economy, stupid.” That said, a couple of observations:

As technology has become more affordable, we’ve seen opportunities spread to high schools, meaning that more students are coming to us better prepared than ever. That also means a responsibility to support those high school programs.

Within our programs, addressing technology is a justifiable focus. Staying one step ahead of it (or is it trying to be only one step behind?) is a perpetual goal. Again, however, I believe the mantra has to be that no matter the delivery mechanism, the basic skills and values ought to remain constant.

Associate professor Dr. Jane Marcellus is an Associate Professor who teaches media history, feature writing and cultural studies at Middle Tennessee State University. Her research focuses on media history and gender, with a particular interest in representation of employed women in the 1920s and 1930s. Her work has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, American Journalism, Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Journal of Popular Culture, and Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Oregon, master’s degrees from the University of Arizona and Northwestern, and a bachelor’s from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. She is a former journalist.

How do you define mass communication?

I would say mass communication or media communication refers to the institutions and practices through which public discourse is mediated, using a variety of technologies and imbricated in political, economic, and cultural concerns.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Part of the joy of teaching history is that offers a way to keep change in perspective. Change happens. Old technologies die; new ones arise. (I’m sure a lot of 15th c. scribes were bent out of shape by Gutenberg’s press.) But many things are constant. The need for clear information is a constant, and I believe it will be more in demand given the critical issues facing the globe–the economy, the environment, terrorism. So I try to get students to keep their eyes on the big picture, while pointing out that they do need to learn a wider variety of skills than journalists in the past.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

Realize that the Internet has broken down some traditional barriers, so the old gatekeeper roles are called into question at best. Find ways to work with the interactive nature of new media while still providing useful information. There’s a teaching function in here. Even before new media, a lot of intelligent people just didn’t know what journalists do and how they should function in a democracy. Now, it’s even harder because people think they can do it themselves. So at a fundamental level, we need to teach literacy–the difference between information and propaganda as well as the ability to critically analyze media of all sorts. We also need to be a lot more humble. Stop acting like political-economic issues don’t influence content. Stop claiming to be “objective.” Objectivity in news is a 20th-century construct. Its time may have passed. I think news in the future will be less static, more like an ever-shifting conversation. Within that, though, there has to be a place for carefully researched and documented information presented in a clear way, while acknowledging that it’s prepared by human beings who do have a point of view.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Media history! If you don’t understand the roots of a field, its evolution, then you have no hope of understanding the field itself in any meaningful way. I take a broad view of “history.” I see it not just as a static story of the dead past, but as a way to study the process of change. We are living through an incredibly critical historical moment in the evolution of media. Without the study of history, and without understanding change in the past, how can we make sense of this moment? I want my students to leave my class with a sense of their own lives in historical context–not just to get a first job but to make their whole, hopefully long lives more interesting. My hope is that studying history will help put the ephemeral nature of media technologies in context and be better prepared for the many changes that will occur throughout their lifetimes.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I have been experimenting with blogs both in media history and in skills courses such as feature writing. I’ve found having a closed class blog somewhat useful in a small seminar, because it can become an informal, communal space where we can continue the discussion outside the classroom. It’s a little more fun than having a “Discussion Board” on D2L, which is rather dry. In my honors media history course, which I organize around the idea of emerging media technologies, the first post I ask them to write is to explore what blogs have to do with media history. In the writing classes, it’s a space to post multimedia examples everyone finds, to share ideas, and to post their own work. Of course, it’s like any other assignment–it has to be part of a grade or they tend not to do it.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Don’t make the mistake of equating “journalism” or even “media communication” with technological skills. Technology is a tool. To equate journalism with, say, editing video makes no more sense than equating a poem with typing. Unfortunately, a lot of people are running around frantically trying to catch up with technology–which is a never-ending battle–and in the process run the risk of sacrificing the enduring issues of the field in favor of ephemeral skills. There is a tendency to fetishize whatever is new just because it’s new, and to accuse those who criticize that stance as out-of-touch Luddites. That misses the point entirely. Embrace the new–but keep it in historical context.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

I hope that it will mature into a much more thoughtful role of mediating public discourse through emerging technologies. In academia, I hope it will mature into field that’s considered fundamental to the academy–one that’s grounded in the liberal arts tradition and that teaches job skills and critical thinking both.

Jan Slater is the Head of Advertising at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to her appointment at Illinois, Slater was an associate professor and the associate director of the E. W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University for nine years. Slater joined the academy following a long career as an advertising practitioner, working in private industry, as well as advertising agencies in Omaha, Nebraska. When she left the business, she was running a successful advertising agency, J. Slater & Associates. Slater has been an active member of the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication since 1995.

How do you define mass communication?

Mass Comm has traditionally referenced a means to conveying information to a population. I think many, in general, apply the mass media to the term. In the past — that has meant newspapers, magazines, and broadcast channels. My personal take on this is that communication has never been mass in its message — in that all messages have been tailored to a specific audience – and while we may have used mass media channels to deliver this – our message has been carefully crafted and targeted to a specific group.

Today, of course – mass media is shrinking in size and strength and consumption. That doesn’t change the context of our message – it simply changes the delivery.

Newspapers, magazines, and broadcast channels are changing how we gather and deliver news, and consumers get to choose the information they want in the form that they want. However, the basic principles of journalism have not changed. Review those principles at the Pew Research Center’s Project for the Excellence in Journalism. Nowhere do these principles dictate the channels in which we deliver journalism. All of those principles are worth fighting for. That is what our charge must be — fight to save journalism — not the old delivery systems. Keep our students excited about that.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

I think we have to be more prominent on our campuses and in our communities and within our professions. Instead of focusing on the demise of the media, we should use our efforts and our skills to restore journalism’s position in a free society. We are the stewards of journalism — we must use our resources to teach, promote and practice journalism for any delivery system. And we must teach more about targeted storytelling and audience insights and consumer-generated content. We may need to teach more research methods to gain a better understanding of how people use and view content — specifically — news content. We may need to teach storytelling, film making, script writing, engineering new media. And we need to partner with each other and the professions. We have the scholarly resources to help them understand the implications of what is going on – as well as developing the new business models and delivery systems of the future.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

I don’t think there is anyone course that makes a difference. I believe it is the curriculum as a whole – and how you weave the principles and skills of journalism through all those courses that matter. Once that philosophy is adopted — the sacred cow course becomes not so sacred.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid of the change. Embrace it and enjoy it. Don’t think you have to know everything. Use experts. Use colleagues. Learn from your students. We have a great organization in AEJMC and we come together every August to share our ideas and our insights. We need do this more often than once a year to keep ourselves fresh and excited about the future. Hopefully, we can make that happen.

Dr. Erik Collins is the Associate Director for Graduate Studies and Research at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. A native of New York, Collins previously served as a senior public relations manager for major corporations including Miller Brewing Company and Philip Morris and taught at Syracuse and Ohio State universities.

How do you define mass communication?

One might, I suppose, define the term by focusing on technology. Let me define it in terms of my idea of its function. Mass Communication is the purposeful intent to communicate information that aids the functioning of individuals in a capitalistic, democratic society through multiple communication channels.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

Strangely enough, students seem to need no motivating force. With their eyes wide open, they are still enthusiastic about careers in mass media even though what exactly those careers will be is, at best, indeterminate.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

They need to figure out a way to get back to the basics that separate true journalism and mass communication from idle chatter and/or fixation on “new” technology. In short, they need to stop being buffeted by the fickle winds emanating from new media gurus and/or Chicken Little pessimists. Students need to be made aware of, if not proficient in, new communication technology (although I would not be surprised to find that they are already ahead of the curve), but it is a loser’s game, in my opinion, to make that a central focus of a journalism/mass communication program.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Thought long and hard about this and it has to be media law and ethics. Almost everything else could be obtained elsewhere in the university or on the job. Knowledge of media law and ethics is clearly one of the great defining factors in separating mass communications professionals from hoi polloi communicators.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

It has to be understood that I generally teach substantive courses, but the actual answer is none whatsoever. In fact, new media technologies are banned from the classroom in favor of that old-fashioned faculty member on one side of the log and student on the other. When it is announced that there will be no Twittering, blogging, texting, e-mailing, Internet searching, PowerPointing or other “-ing” in this course, invariably, with the exception of the scowling student in the back who suddenly realizes that he actually will have to pay attention in this class, the students erupt into cheers and applause. Students today are perfectly capable of supplementing the classroom experience through use of new media tools on their own.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

It would be a two-edged bit of advice. To fellow educators, remember that this is a profession and that at least some of their efforts ought to be aimed at solving problems and/or advancing knowledge for the professional community. The professionals need to recognize that now, more than ever, they need to support the efforts of the academic community to achieve a partnership to solve the raft of problems facing the profession.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

Candidly, and unfortunately, from my perspective, I don’t believe either is headed in the right direction. There is a startling incompetence in the management of traditional media, exemplified everyday by lamentations about the decline of newspapers and the fragmentation of advertising. Why in the world Google is not APoogle or Craigslist is not NYTimeslist is almost beyond comprehension. And that the mass media, long ago, did not figure out a way to stop giving away their product for free is mind-boggling. As for journalism and mass communication education, the concept that it should function as a professional school, similar to law, medicine or engineering seems to be disappearing in favor of turning journalism and mass communication education into a social science oriented academic discipline. Rather than focusing research efforts on advancing knowledge to aid the profession (e.g., creating a workable business model for online journalism), many academics today apparently could care less about what is happening in the professional world in the sense of trying to solve the problems it faces. What an ideal world it would be, from my perspective, if all the media professionals were as eager to get their hands on Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly or the Journal of Public Relations Research, as physicians are to receive their copy of JAMA.

Jeremy Littau has 10 years of experience in journalism after working at newspapers of different sizes, specializing in editing and writing both in print and online. He got his start at the Daily Democrat in Woodland, CA, and did the typical “move up the ladder” part of his career, landing at the Los Angeles Daily News in 2000. He spent four years at the Daily News before returning to school at Missouri. He earned his M.A. from Missouri in 2007 and is now in his final year in the Ph.D. program.

Jeremy’s research interests are found in new media trends in journalism and he is the author of several publications on the subject. He is currently an assistant professor at Lehigh University, specializing in multiplatform storytelling that makes use of audience conversation in the news process.

How do you define mass communication?

My answer probably won’t pop up in any textbooks, but I would define mass communication as the creation and transmission of messages for broad dissemination to an audience whose motives for consumption are imagined. I think that last part, the imagined audience receiving a broadly disseminated message, is the heart of mass communication. People working in the discipline are gathering information, constructing it into a message, and then sending it out to a faceless group of consumers. As a journalist, for example, I always tried to imagine who my readers were and what their needs were, and that led to a different style of communication than I would have with a friend, family member, or even a source I was interviewing.

Whether we’ve understood that audience as well as we should is a whole other can of worms, but that’s why we need research.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

The good news is they are still coming to journalism programs in strong numbers, so I would say I focus more on not killing that excitement while still being honest about the challenges they face. These students are growing up so media saturated that they are coming to us sensing that they like the media product and want to be involved in it somehow, so my goal in the classroom or in mentoring students is to try and find a way to channel that energy. A fair number of my students have told me they find journalism programs to be too constraining for the things they want to do. I try to be flexible in the classroom and let them know they have plenty of options beyond the traditional curriculum, and then I try to model it by working with them to achieve their goals.

Basically I try to stay out of the way of them achieving their goals but try to focus on helping them build skills and a sense of how to achieve those goals. Along the way, I try to help them hone their sense of critical thinking and ethical decision-making while being flexible to the changing media landscape. I think these two things are something they can’t get anywhere else but the academic environment.

The other thing I tell them is that they’re the generation remaking all of this, and so in some ways the world is their oyster. This probably scares some of the ones just looking to do the traditional “get a job and work your way up” career path, but for others it can be an exciting chance to make your own way.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

That’s probably a difficult one to answer without coming off as a know-it-all junior scholar. I prefer to think about it in terms of what my students have told me they need. They want to learn more than the nut graf and inverted pyramid. They want to learn how to tell stories across multiple platforms, but they also want us to be able to adapt and teach them how to tell stories on new platforms we might not yet be familiar with. They want us to be training them for jobs that don’t yet exist (such as telling stories with databases or developing iPhone applications for news distribution) not training them to do jobs that won’t exist in five years.

The reason I answer it that way is because we need to listen to the students coming to us if we want to stay relevant.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Journalism and/or mass media history, without a doubt. I find this to be a fascinating time to be reading journalism history, because I’m reminded that this age of user-generated media is both new and old. The reason I’m not overly concerned about journalism is that I’ve read my history, and that history tells me that we’ll be fine in the long run. History gives us a sense of perspective that this new era is really a replaying of things we’ve been through before, and right now the industry could use a lot of perspective.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I experimented with Twitter a bit the past year, and I’m planning on making that a formal part of what I do in the classroom. I’ve seen a lot of hype about using “clickers” in the classroom, but the ability to get real-time feed back in classes that goes beyond a vote is where it’s at for me. Also, in smaller classes, I always make them blog, even if it’s not a writing class. I just want them getting used to the technology and learning to always think about writing down their thoughts, but I also do it because I want them to emerge from my courses understanding that the media world is a social world and that they play a part in this framework. Of course, it’s always been a social enterprise in the big picture, but those social links are more immediate.

Blogs vs. a microblogging service like Twitter present such grand opportunities. Blogging can be long or short form, but I find Twitter focuses the mind because of the 140-character limit. I want my students to learn to think about how to express themselves in long pieces and short bursts.

I’m also teaching an online masters course this summer at MU and using Blackboard, but I’m doing some “value added” things like video lectures to add image and voice to the instruction. The students, who are learning by distance (and often internationally) have responded with excitement to this, and it’s really nothing much more difficult than recording a 10-minute chat on webcam and uploading it to YouTube.

I also find that using tech tools in the teaching process tends to keep me current on the things I need to know in order to better teach students how to use it as part of their journalistic routines.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Don’t be passive and wait for the industry to figure out technology change. Clyde Bentley, my mentor here at MU, has helped me see that you need to view technology change through the eyes of a journalist. What can I do with the iPhone, or more specifically, with iPhone applications? What about some of the newer advances, like GPS watermarks embedded into photos taken on your digital cameras? So I like to scan tech sites or fun tech blogs like Gizmodo and try to imagine journalism applications for new things.

Most of those ideas I wouldn’t use, but I think it’s helpful to get in that mindset (and get our students in that mindset) so that we don’t face change with fear. One of the most wonderful attributes I have experienced with my journalistic peers is that we tend to share a sense of curiosity about new or unknown things; this is just another application of that.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

The future is bright, but what we’re producing isn’t all that different than it has been. We have more ways to tell stories than ever before, and we have more platforms for publishing. But the heart of what we do is still storytelling. It’s still taking information and packaging it in ways that are meaningful for people trying to cut through the noise of information explosion. I love what Matt Thompson of EPIC 2015 fame (his blog is at http://newsless.org) says when he talks about the journalist’s role as providing context in the era of information overload. If there’s one thing that journalism should be right now, it has to be that. To be honest, I don’t know what else we do that has any value in the age of the citizen publisher.

What I do think we need to do is redefine what it means to do that work. At times we’ve sold journalists as experts on our community and that our news is “complete coverage” or other such nonsense that is more a marketing slogan than it is a reality. The beauty of the Web is that it has exposed this as a myth, and so we can go about doing the real work that matters, such as providing context to the day’s events and being guides to our community that helps create community.

As far as higher education goes, the times are challenging as well but it’s a good opportunity to focus on the core of what we do well and all these changes have given all of us a license to create. As I said before, I don’t think we have the luxury of being passive while the industry is changing so much because once you become irrelevant then that damages your j-school’s brand. I also think this is a wonderful opportunity for smaller programs to take the lead on some of the enormous changes happening in our field by experimenting with new ideas for teaching and training students.

I also think we need to be training students how to be entrepreneurs. Media change is forcing people to dream some of this up on their own, and so skills in marketing and the business side as well as how to create advertising opportunity are going to be vital to the new breed of journalist. It’s certainly something I never learned in journalism school.

Inspired by the series on social media by Danny Brown, “Discussing JMC with…” features a collection of interviews with academics from across the U.S. and abroad discussing current topics and trends in journalism and mass communication.

Bill Cassidy is an Associate Professor and Journalism Area Coordinator in the Department of Communication at Northern Illinois University. The 2009-2010 head of the Newspaper Division of AEJMC, he teaches courses in print journalism, mass communication theory and graduate research methods.

His research examines influences on news media content, specifically in the areas of online journalism, media credibility and AIDS coverage. Cassidy’s work has been published in journals such as Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Newspaper Research Journal, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Atlantic Journal of Communication, and First Monday.

He earned his Ph.D. in Communication and Society from the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Oregon. He holds a master’s degree from the University of Houston and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Tulsa. Prior to entering academia, Cassidy worked for more than a decade as a columnist and correspondent for Daily Racing Form, the leading publication in the Thoroughbred horse racing industry.

How do you define mass communication?

In my classes I initially address this question from the standpoint of “What is mass media?” We start with the word media which, of course, are the different technologies that facilitate communication between the senders and receivers of messages. Then when we introduce mass into the conversation, we arrive at a definition of mass media similar to the one offered in Croteau and Hoynes’ Media Society textbook, “media that reach a relatively large audience of usually anonymous readers.” I find this definition is a good starting point in addressing the fact that the distinctions between mass communication and other forms of communication are no longer so cut-and-dried.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

By being excited about it myself! I believe the work journalists do is vitally important in our society. Good journalism is powerful and can make a difference. So, it’s easy for me to maintain an enthusiastic presence in the classroom, which I hope is beneficial to my students. Furthermore, I think that, despite these tough times, there will always be a need for folks who can write well and think critically.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

This question has been on my mind a great deal during the past year or so, as the journalism faculty here at NIU has been working hard to revamp our program to make it more relevant. In the process, we’ve had many interesting and enlightening conversations. Given university bureaucracy it’s a long and arduous process that is far from over; but we’re opening up our curriculum and giving students more opportunities to take courses in different mediums, rather than having a single emphasis. We are also offering more conceptual courses designed to help students further appreciate and grasp the important role journalists play in our society, as well as sharpen their critical thinking skills. We also want to offer more courses in new media and better incorporate new media into existing courses.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be, and why?

Information Gathering. In fact, we have brought this course back from the dead at NIU and I think the course is essential for journalism and mass communication programs. Citizens have access to such a huge amount of information that it can be difficult to wade through, synthesize and distinguish the credible from the ridiculous. In this day and age, journalists need to be able to help the public make sense of it all.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater! I sometimes worry that in our zeal to be cutting edge, we’ve put too much emphasis on teaching students how to use new technologies at the expense of everything else. I think we need to focus on the core principles of journalism, while at the same time teaching students how to best utilize technology in their work. I’ve seen research where news organizations state that critical thinking skills and writing ability are what they look for most in potential employees. Their philosophy seems to be that they can teach new employees how to use technology fairly easily. Furthermore, technology is changing so fast that it doesn’t seem logical for that to be the main focus.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

This is a difficult question. I’ll address it in terms of what I HOPE to see. My answer comes from my own experience of being a journalism professor in departments of communication where subjects such as interpersonal, small group, organizational communication and rhetoric are all taught. While it’s all communication, a good journalism program has unique needs and sometimes that’s difficult for folks in other areas to understand. In order to build the strongest journalism program possible, I think that a university or college should have a faculty consisting of talented scholars AND talented professionals. Many of these professionals might lack a Ph.D., but they are vitally important to a strong program and have much to offer our students. I would like for those in administration to have a better understanding of this professional component of our field.

Inspired by the series on social media by Danny Brown, “Discussing JMC with…” features a collection of interviews with academics from across the U.S. and abroad discussing current topics and trends in journalism and mass communication.

Amy Schmitz Weiss is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism & Media Studies at San Diego State University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 2008. Dr. Schmitz Weiss is a former journalist who has been involved in new media for over a decade. She also has worked in business development, marketing analysis, and account management for several Chicago Internet media firms.

Her research interests include online journalism, media sociology, news production, and international communication. She has presented her research at several national and international conferences. Recent publications include a co-authored peer-reviewed journal article and a co-authored book that was published in December 2007. She is presently researching the role of collaborative processes in newsrooms in the United States and abroad. Dr. Schmitz Weiss is also investigating the importance and benefits of online distance education for the journalism industry as an innovative force in collaborative work and its ability to support journalistic communities of practice.

How do you define mass communication?

Mass communication aims to provide a wide lens on communication that encompasses a variety of mediums and messages and how the actors and audiences/publics interact with it.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

I tell the students that this is not a time of downturn but opportunity and innovation. I tell my students that they are on the edge of pioneering new forms of communication – whether it is in public relations, advertising, journalism or media studies – they will be part of a transformation that will be unlike any other seen before. I inform them of case studies that are happening everywhere around us daily – to serve as role models and for inspiration.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

Be willing to think innovatively and creatively. Taking risks and experimenting with new forms of storytelling in journalism. This involves understanding the role journalism and mass communication has in the larger digital media landscape today.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be, and why?

I would save a course on writing and editing 101 for journalists. This is a crucial course that helps students to learn how to write well and edit text for various publications. The writing and editing skills are still paramount in our industry today despite the latest innovations in technology, distribution and delivery of information. We still need to have excellent writers and editors.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

In my teaching, I use a combination of tools and applications depending on its applicability to the subject area. I am not the kind of person to use a tool or technology for the sake of it because it is there – it has to help scaffold the student’s learning.

Applications that I use with my students for my online journalism classes include Macromedia Flash, Soundslides, Audacity, FinalCut Pro, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator and some open-source applications depending on the class. These applications also help the students to be prepared for using these applications in a future job in digital media.

For tools I use social media, a course management system such as Blackboard, video, screencasts of lectures I make, and much more.

These tools are used in particular to help complement the class materials to help the students in achieving the learning objectives I set for them by scaffolding their learning in and outside of the classroom

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Don’t be afraid to take risks and experiment. Be innovative. Be willing to go against the status quo to see how we can strive to make journalism better with the main aim of serving the public for a more informed citizenry that is required in a democratic society.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

I think the future is bright for journalism and mass communication. We are at the beginning of a transformation that will bring exciting changes to how we communicate and interact in a digital media age. For higher education, I believe we have an exciting challenge ahead in making sure we are preparing the students of today for new positions, responsibilities, and tasks in a digital environment that has yet to be fully developed or evolved. It’s an exciting time to be in this industry – as a practitioner or educator!!

Inspired by the series on social media by Danny Brown, “Discussing JMC with…” features a collection of interviews with academics from across the U.S. and abroad discussing current topics and trends in journalism and mass communication.

Francesca Dillman Carpentier is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her teaching interests include television production, telecommunication management and policy, and media effects. Her research questions focus on how we process mass-mediated messages, with additional focus on understanding what motivates us to select certain media offerings over others.

Francesca’s academic work has been published in a number of journals inside and outside of the communication discipline, for example Media Psychology, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, International Journal on Media Management, Journal of School Violence, and Personality and Individual Differences. She has also written television scripts for children’s and educational videos.

How do you define mass communication?

I would broadly define ‘mass communication’ as any message delivered in any number of vehicles (high tech, low tech, or no tech) to an audience consisting of a group of individuals who might or might not share a number of similarities.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

I focus on the idea of doing what you love, and I also emphasize that the skills they learn are not just applicable to employment at a newspaper organization or television news network. There is need for good communicators, good writers, good videographers, and good information packagers in nearly any field, from marketing to medicine to space exploration.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

I think an acknowledgment of amateur information gathering and social media is crucial to understanding what interests people, how people want to be reached, and how people differentiate between non-professional and professional quality work. From here, I think giving students a good overview of the different skill sets is needed to be competitive in our newly-converged environment, as well as challenging them to think about new ways of packaging information and reaching different publics. Ultimately, I believe it’s of the highest importance to get the students to think conceptually about how to use the tools they learn to become leaders in the field, not just good employees.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Editing. I’m a firm believer that one’s writing cannot really improve unless that person can successfully critique others’ writing, as well as his/her own. I think this is true no matter what style of writing is needed for the job.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

Well, I teach audio/video/multimedia introductory courses, in which the students get to play with the different toys they might encounter on the job, in addition to getting to know various software packages they’d likely use to create radio, television, and online presentations. We’re using digital audio recorders, shooting in HD (with an eye for 4:3, of course), playing around with mics and lighting, editing primarily on Final Cut, having fun with video compression, and demystifying webpage creation by having some light fun with Dreamweaver and Flash.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

I have no idea. Perhaps try to keep up with the technological advancements of the field? Perhaps try not to let the technological advancements overshadow the importance of good storytelling? I feel I need to remind myself of this second point quite often.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

I see the future as bright, especially with the push for interdisciplinary work and with the recognition by other fields, such as public health, that mass communication is integral to the success of their own endeavors. I think the definition of what journalism is will change and perhaps become more broad, and I think we will see continued use of citizen journalists, but I also think the traditional core of fact-checking, objective reporting, etc. will remain hallmarks of good professional-quality communication – hallmarks that will still be recognized by our media-saavy public.

Ted Spiker, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Florida, teaches Magazine Management, Magazine & Feature Writing, Advanced Magazine & Feature Writing, Finding Your Voice, Journalism as Literature, Health & Fitness Writing, and Applied Magazines—the course that produces the campus magazine, Orange & Blue. Spiker, a contributing editor to Men’s Health magazine, is also a freelance writer who specializes in health and fitness writing.

His work has also been published in Outside; O, The Oprah Magazine; Fortune; Women’s Health; Best Life; Prevention; Runner’s World; Reader’s Digest; Sports Illustrated Women; AARP The Magazine; and more. Spiker is also co-author of about a dozen books, including the national bestselling YOU: The Owner’s Manual series with Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Mike Roizen. Spiker is currently serving as the head of the AEJMC Magazine Division.

How do you define mass communication?

I think anytime we’re sending out messages to a group of people, that’s mass comm. But I tend to make a distinction depending on the audience. I think of mass communication as a form of media that sends a message to an audience that the sender doesn’t necessarily know personally. So to me, the traditional Facebook status updates (as opposed to fan pages) is merely talking to a group of friends electronically, but a Twitter update where you have followers you don’t know, that’s mass communication. The size doesn’t matter as much as the relationship.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

I just heard a great talk by one of our UF alums who has a big role at a major cable network. We talked about this issue and one of the things that came up is that media companies aren’t the only place for journalists and communicators. Every company (big or small) is a media company, and every company needs people who can communicate effectively in all forms, whether it’s telling a story, brand development, or 140-character teases about a message the company wants to send. It may be a changing industry, but I think there are going to be lots of spots for good communicators and good storytellers.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

We need to strike that balance between our traditional principles, but also being able to adapt to new forms of delivery, new kinds of storytelling, and even new ethics. But in this age of unending info, doesn’t it come down to the fact that best content (delivered creatively and compellingly) will win? J-schools should still be teaching those skills—being creative, generating unique ideas, and then figuring out cool ways to deliver on those unique ideas.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

We’ve got to keep basic reporting courses because in the era when anyone can publish anything, we’re going to need (and will value) those people who can find good information, no matter the field. But I also think that with the change in media, we’re going to need to change, too. I’ve been lucky enough to teach an elective called Finding your Voice a few times—it’s a non-fiction writing class that tries to help students develop their own style and distinct voice as writers. In this age of blogs, POV and personality, the thing that really makes people stand out—besides good content—is a strong and unique voice. We’re doing this in writing classes anyway, but more and more, this will become a core principle that we’ll use when we teach fundamentals—know the rules, then find ways to twist them upside their head, smack ‘em silly and go back for seconds.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I’ve had students write blogs for my Health Writing class, and I made students follow me on Twitter (@ProfSpiker) so they can quickly link to appropriate items I think they should read. In my Health Writing class, I’ve also customized the final project—students can pick their medium (print, video, audio), whether it’s an individual or team project, etc… Then I build a grading construct based on the project they want to do. It’s a bit of a challenge to make the grading equitable, but I like that it gives them the flexibility to try and use different storytelling methods and approaches depending on their interests.

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

It seems like we’re in this world of customization—something magazines have been doing for a long time. But since we’re going in the direction of giving our audience the ability to customize everything about what content they get and the way they get it, maybe that’s where we’ll go with higher ed, too. It’ll be a challenge to make one classroom experience different for individual students. And maybe that’s not even the right way to go. While I think we ultimately have to lead our students by giving them what they need, I guess I wonder if we can also help them by giving them a little more of what they want.

Charles N. Davis is an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and the executive director for the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), headquartered at the School.

Davis’ scholarly research focuses on access to governmental information and media law. He has published in law reviews and scholarly journals on issues ranging from federal and state freedom of information laws to libel law, privacy and broadcast regulation. He has earned a Sunshine Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for his work in furthering freedom of information and the University of Missouri-Columbia Provost’s Award for Outstanding Junior Faculty Teaching, as well as the Faculty-Alumni Award. In 2009, Davis was named the Scripps Howard Foundation National Journalism Teacher of the Year.

Davis has been a primary investigator for a research grant from the James S. and John L. Knight Foundation for NFOIC and another from the Rockefeller Family Fund for the study of homeland security and freedom of information issues. He was a co-investigator for an award from the U.S. Department of State for a curriculum reform project for Moscow State University in Russia.

Davis worked for newspapers and as a national correspondent for Lafferty Publications, a Dublin-based news wire service for financial publications, Davis reported on banking, e-commerce and regulatory issues for seven years before leaving full-time journalism in 1993.

How do you define mass communication?

Hmmm…..I wonder whether the question is whether the very nature of mass communication is changing in real time, with emphasis on the “mass.” Blogs, listservs, Twitter feeds – all can achieve what a decade ago required mass distribution. What that does to the relationship between the audience and the content mean these days, and how it works with and without interpersonal media – those are real questions worth pursuing.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

If a student is not excited, or at the very least intrigued, by the chaotic state of the field these days, then they lack the kind of thrill-seeking spirit that will be requisite in the industry these days anyway! That said, I hope that I keep students excited by demonstrating, through lots and lots of examples, just how amazing journalism can be, the good that it does and its centrality to the democracy.

If we demonstrate passion, daily, for what we do, the students get that — immediately and profoundly.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

If I knew what changes that we needed to male to stay relevant — if I, or anyone else held the keys to that riddle — they could set themselves up in a sweet consulting deal and retire to a lovely island somewhere in no time. Truth is, none of us knows precisely where all of this is headed, certainly not economically, but can we agree that students at the very least expect to be trained in a variety of media distribution platforms? To be conversant in a variety of platforms, while retaining our core skills and theoretical training seems, to me, to be the tension here. How do we do all of this simultaneously, and do we risk become dependent on the ever-changing technology and taking our eyes off the bottom-line mission of teaching our students how to report and write and edit at a professional level? I often feel we need twice as much time as we have just to accomplish some measure of professionalism on that front.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Well, this is incredibly selfish, but I’d save the media law course, because disruptive technologies have a way of challenging legal assumptions, and the basis of First Amendment protection for expression is certainly no exception. We must create a new generation of mass communicators with a deep appreciation for First Amendment rights — many of which will face renewed challenges in this era of “new” threats posed by new technologies.

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I am a laggard in terms of technology, but I find myself working to close the gap between myself and my students, who are always introducing me to new applications. I am a FaceBook and Twitter user of some renown — I find them to be the only ways in which I can effectively communicate quickly with students. I am experimenting with some podcasting, e-books and other things as well.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

One piece of advice? Wow. That’s pressure!

I guess one piece of advice I seem to tell someone, either a current or former student, seemingly weekly, is that journalists of this era must be willing to embrace the change inherent in technologies, and not give in to the powerful temptation to throw up their hands and yield it to the kids! Students need — indeed, they crave — direction in terms of reportage and writing. That doesn’t change. It never will. So embrace that which is changing, and you’ll get much better at doing the stuff that hasn’t changed, and won’t. It sounds cliché, I know, but really doing that is a brave thing. I have not yet done it as completely as I should, I know that!

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

In terms of both journalism education and higher education in general, what I see is an age of greater entrepreneurial impetus, independence and disintermediation than ever before. The institutions that once brought us all the journalism, and provided us J-Schools with all the jobs, are in the midst of evolutionary change. Higher education is a bit more insulated from those effects — for now. But the university I retire from will look very, very different from the university that today’s retiree is leaving.

David Cuillier joined the University of Arizona faculty in 2006 specializing in freedom of information after finishing his Ph.D. in Communication at Washington State University. His research has been published in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Government Information Quarterly, Journalism, Newspaper Research Journal, Journal of Mass Media Ethics, and he is co-author with Charles N. Davis of The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records (CQ Press, 2010, www.theartofaccess.com).

Cuillier, who was a newspaper reporter and editor for a dozen years in the Pacific Northwest before entering academia, teaches access to government records, public affairs reporting, computer-assisted reporting and other journalism courses. He is the research chair for the AEJMC Law & Policy Division, member of the International Communication Association, and is chairman of the Society of Professional Journalists Freedom of Information Committee. He was awarded the AEJMC Nafziger-White-Salwen Dissertation Award in 2007, is a four-time AEJMC Great Ideas for Teaching (GIFT) scholar, and the Promising Professor Award winner for graduate students in 2004 and for faculty in 2009.

How do you define mass communication?

The short answer: Mass communication is the communication of messages to the masses. The long answer: Mass communication includes a lot — journalism, propaganda, public relations, advertising, speech, twitter, blogs, etc., but sometimes students conflate some of these areas. I come from a journalism background and teach in a School of Journalism that has no public relations, advertising or communication studies tracks. We’re just journalism (print, broadcast, online, or any other medium for that matter). While I certainly respect someone’s decision to go into PR or another field, because those areas play an important role in society, I think we need more of a focus on journalism in college education. A student will think that writing a travel piece about a cruise line while being comped by the cruise line is journalism, when it’s not. Or they think that people yelling at each other on cable news is journalism. Or they think that exploiting celebrities on TMZ is journalism. It’s all mass communication, and it is communicated on journalism-like mediums, but it isn’t journalism.

I will go to the mat and defend to the death, from a First Amendment perspective, for the rights of people to yell, advertise, spin, and publish photos of drunk celebrities, but I don’t call it journalism. We need to make sure students understand that in journalism the first loyalty is to the citizen, not to another entity that may or may not be looking out for citizens’ interests, and that journalists verify information, get as close as they can to the truth, and seek justice and betterment of the societal good. That, in my opinion, is journalism, not mass communication.

How do you keep your students excited about working in the field of communications in light of shrinking job opportunities?

I think this is the most exciting time for journalism in decades. I wish I were an undergraduate student right now. When I started working at newspapers in high school it was during the 1980s as circulations began dropping each year. In every job I had to worry about profit margins and declining readership, scrambling with everyone else on the sinking ship of newspapers. What a bummer of a work environment. Now, young journalists get to be a part of a new era of journalism, starting at the bottom and rising to the top. They can be a part of new investigative non-profit Web sites, create their own community sites, or develop expertise in a region of the world or topical niche. I tell my students that they can be the Hearsts, Pulitzers, or Poynters of the digital age, building online news empires (and ending up rich and quirky, living in their 80s in big empty mansions, repeating “Rosebud, Rosebud…”).

The future of journalism is something to embrace, not fear. It’s like my chair, Jacqueline Sharkey, says: during the transformation from horse and buggies to automobiles we didn’t stop moving. The new technology actually increased travel. Same with new technology. With the Internet and demise of newspapers, we aren’t going to stop gathering, disseminating or consuming news. There is an even greater need for outstanding journalists to help people wade through useless information to find news that is important to them and their communities. But students are going to have to work hard, apply initiative, and be flexible. As long as they remember the key principles and skills of journalism (truth, verification, loyalty to citizens, ethics, etc.), they will do well for themselves and their communities. It’s incredibly exciting.

What changes do journalism and mass communication programs need to make in order to stay relevant today?

I think journalism programs must continue to focus on the basics: aggressively gathering information and communicating it clearly within a framework of holding government accountable, being accurate, and upholding ethics. It’s important to introduce students to technology, but we shouldn’t water down the basics.

If you could save one journalism and mass communication course from extinction, what would it be and why?

Wow. This is tough! I would like to say courses on media law, ethics, or accessing public records (if that is taught much at all), but I think the most important course is a strong introductory course focusing on principles of journalism: The “why” of what we do, and the elements of journalism (well articulated by the book of the same name by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel). Students need an overview of the history, purpose, and importance of journalism as a check on government and champion for justice and human betterment. I’m not talking indoctrination, but rather understanding the core principles of journalism, particularly the watchdog role in society and democratic self-governance, at a time when forces would use mass communication to subvert democracy and human rights for their own power or profits.

While skills courses are important in a college curriculum, students can pick those up through internships, student media, and their jobs, just as journalists traditionally have done for decades — by doing. But if there’s one thing we can do that the real world can’t for young people, it’s conveying the meaning and importance of journalism. Without that, our students are merely effective communicators who are a little better at grammar than their peers and know how to use Final Cut Pro. They might actually do more harm than good if they allow themselves to be used as tools against the public interest. Let me take a quote from Edward R. Murrow and tweak it a little for what we do as educators:

“These young journalists can teach, they can illuminate; yes, they can even inspire. But they can do so only to the extent that they are determined to use their skills to those ends. Otherwise they are merely wires and lights in a computer monitor or handheld device. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon – a dedicated young watchdog journalist – could be useful.”

What new media tools or applications do you incorporate in your teaching? Why these in particular?

I try to incorporate the basics of new media tools, such as photo slide shows (e.g., Soundslides, Audacity) and data analysis software for my computer-assisted reporting course (Excel, Access, open-source software to post data online and map it, etc.). The knowledge helps students bolster their resumes and get used to what they are going to have to deal with on the job, telling stories in the most effective way possible. Also, we have a required course in multimedia for all majors, like a lot of schools, covering Final Cut Pro, video, audio capture, etc. However, I tell students they are probably going to have to learn other tools and continuously learn new software as they go along. They have to learn how to learn, and we can’t teach all the software or technology in four years.

If you could offer a piece of advice to both your fellow educators and media professionals in the field, what would it be?

Shoot, I don’t have wisdom for others, and I’ve already expressed my thoughts about journalism education. But I would hope that educators and professionals would not lose hope. It’s pretty depressing out there – everyone is moping around because of the industry’s economic problems. People need to remember that what we do is crucial for society. Be proud!

What do you see for the future of journalism and mass communication both in general and in higher education?

I think there will always be a future in journalism and mass communication because it is so important. I think people realize now that blogs and citizen journalists will not replace journalists. They play a role, but we need people who are skilled at gathering, analyzing, and communicating information that is important for citizens, and people who can keep an eye on government. If journalists won’t do it, who will?